Chapter 13 #3
If they truly planned to kill her, as Ben had suggested, it wouldn’t matter what she thought she knew. Terror only made prey fight harder, more desperately—and that was exactly the sort of chase his family enjoyed: one with the urgency precipitated by the stakes of life and death.
“Stop running, Nadine,” he shouted. “Come here. Talk to me.”
“Stay the fuck away from me!” she shrieked back.
She was faster than he had expected. When he had chased her out of the Blue Bar the other night, she hadn’t exactly been trying to get away.
And perhaps he was the monster she thought he was after all, because part of him thrilled at the anticipation of catching her, that focus heightening his appreciation of her pumping legs and the sight of her long hair flying up with every kick of her heels as she flew across the loamy soil.
She was nearly elemental, a desperate sprite.
“There’s nowhere to go,” he called out. “The road’s blocked.
Where are you going to go—the sheriff’s?
” The words popped out of his mouth as she swerved down that familiar path, cutting around the dirt shoulder of the road.
The sheriff’s. That was exactly where she was going.
Her and that little bag filled with God-knew what.
Just like her sister who had died doing the same.
Horror filled him.
“You really don’t want to do that.”
“Screw you!”
Adrenaline hit his veins like a drug. He ran harder, pushing through his limits. Lashing out in a violent gesture, he managed to catch one of her flailing wrists. With a hard pull, he sent her stumbling to a halt like a broken toy.
“Nadine. I mean it. You do not want to go into that building. Whatever you think you know, you don’t. Come back to the house with me, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
She was just a sparrow, fluttering at the bars of the cage that would squeeze her to nothing but blood and pulp and feathers. She needed gentle coaxing before she dashed herself to pieces on the very truths she thought would set her free. Noelle hadn’t waited and she was with the others now.
“Think of your sister,” he urged, a catch in his breathing. “Remember.”
Nadine blinked, and he dared to hope that she would come. That he could take her in hand and fix this before it all went to rot.
Then she shoved at him with a ferocity he hadn’t expected, letting out a harsh cry. Cal grabbed at her again, his fingers grazing fabric as she spun herself out of reach and hurtled towards the sheriff’s office—and her doom—despite his roared command for her to stop.
Fuck. He ran faster.
The old sheriff’s station had been built back in the 1880s and its splintered old door cracked like thunder as he slammed it open, sending up a cloud of wood fibers where it met the wall.
They painted a dramatic picture, the two of them. Nadine, huddled beside Rael like she thought he might offer his protection, and Gideon seated laconically at his desk like a sated bear. Rael looked at him long and hard, his eyes flicking to his father.
“Whose murder?” Gideon asked her, as if there had been no interruption. He toyed with the brass handles of his desk, looking far too casual for the situation at hand.
Nadine swallowed hard. “I—I don’t know. Several.”
“Goddamn it, Nadine.” He moved towards her and paused, a sense of déjà vu threatening to overtake him entirely when the sheriff lifted up a warning hand. “Don’t.”
“It was his family,” Nadine blurted. “His whole fucking family. They’re all crazy and I have proof.”
Gideon looked at him. His father often wore that look, too; it was like looking at a cliffside that had been weathered by cruel and inclement weather: a jaded indifference to all but the inevitability of life’s red and bloodied jaws.
“She says she has proof, Caledon.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” The words were glass shards in his mouth. Nadine bristled visibly.
“Yes, I do. My sister left notes—I found them all over—in the cave, in curtains. She was trying to warn me. She sent me a postcard that told me that she was in trouble and that she needed help. I d-don’t know what they did to her, but I found a journal under the floorboards.
I think—” she drew in a sobbing breath “—I think they’re hunting women. I think they hunted Noelle.”
Tears were pouring down her face now. She couldn’t see Gideon reach into his drawer.
But Cal did.
“I see. Well now. That’s a lot to take in.”
“I need to get out of here,” she cried. “I c-can’t go back to them.”
“You won’t.” The words were like the blade of an axe falling, coming from his father’s oldest and most loyal friend. “Don’t worry. You won’t be going anywhere.”
Nadine lifted her head. “W-wait what? What does that mean?”
Rael grabbed her before she could run, murmuring something in an undertone. Cal saw the instinct rise in her eyes along with the fear and she gave a single, futile jerk as Rael’s father approached from the side.
“What?” she said again, staring at Rael with a look of horror he’d already glimpsed far too many times.
Then his father drove the syringe into her throat.
Nadine screamed before Rael could cover her mouth and when he did, she tried to bite.
Releasing one of her hands—fool—allowed her to fight, but whatever she’d been dosed with was fast-acting and Rael still had a grip on one of her arms. She stumbled, as if the wooden boards beneath her feet were made of ice instead of weathered pine.
Cal stepped forward to catch her as Rael shoved her his way.
As soon as she felt his hands on her body, Nadine tried even harder to get away, but her struggle was more like the shudder of a creature in its final death throes.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she said, in a raw, thin voice.
Gideon grabbed her bag and rifled through it.
“Jesus,” he said. “Little Miss Nancy Drew had you by the balls, son.”
“Cal.” Nadine’s voice was as slow and thick as dripping molasses. Her eyes were trained on his face, the pupils blown out so large that the grey looked nearly black. “Please.”
“You flew too high, darling.” Working to keep his voice impassive for the benefit of his audience despite his aching heart, he traced along her wrist. Her pulse was slow—far slower than it should have been. “Now it’s time to clip your wings.”
She moaned a denial that could have been a final plea or a damning curse before going as still as death as his arms.